How do you cultivate gratitude without becoming a shallowly optimistic person that lives mostly in denial of the hard realities of life? How do you confront life with all its ugliness and often overwhelming messiness without becoming largely jaded, negatively critical, and bitter?
I, more often than not, vacillate between the two.
My husband, on the other hand, has found a way to live acutely aware of the raw and often, painful, realities of life whilst facing it with a genuine and tender approach wrapped in gratitude. He tells me the secret and transformational magic is actually a quite simple and rather mundane task. Each day he lists one thing he is grateful for and thanks God for it throughout the day. By the end of the week he has seven things he meditates gratitude on.
The "magical transformation" didn't happen overnight. It took weeks and months of faithfully keeping this daily gratitude list before we both noticed that he was much less negatively critical and much more open and gracious. This secret task, was no secret either. It was a suggestion given to him by our pastor back in Portland, OR, who was then, my husband's mentor.
I, more often than not, vacillate between the two.
My husband, on the other hand, has found a way to live acutely aware of the raw and often, painful, realities of life whilst facing it with a genuine and tender approach wrapped in gratitude. He tells me the secret and transformational magic is actually a quite simple and rather mundane task. Each day he lists one thing he is grateful for and thanks God for it throughout the day. By the end of the week he has seven things he meditates gratitude on.
The "magical transformation" didn't happen overnight. It took weeks and months of faithfully keeping this daily gratitude list before we both noticed that he was much less negatively critical and much more open and gracious. This secret task, was no secret either. It was a suggestion given to him by our pastor back in Portland, OR, who was then, my husband's mentor.
There may be the few humans out there who are, either by temperament or by their upbringing, or both, where gratitude comes more naturally. But that is not the case with me. And I'm learning that in order to have an attitude adorned in thankfulness, I need to be intentional about it. I need to replace my more natural tendency to grumble and complain with the habit of intentionally noticing those things that I ought to be grateful for by jotting them down each day and then thanking God for them.
They are there, those things. Waiting to be noticed. What is one thing you are grateful for today?
They are there, those things. Waiting to be noticed. What is one thing you are grateful for today?
Day 3 of Cultivating joy through 20 days of gratefulness.